Raves affect public safety, teens alike

Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski was called to plenty of large parties when he was a sergeant at the Central Michigan University Police Department.

Most of those were at apartment complexes and at the tailgate area near Kelly-Shorts Stadium.

What Mioduszewski has not had experience in - like most law enforcement agencies in central Michigan - is rave parties.

Mecosta County Sheriff Todd Purcell said law enforcement was taken by surprise when more than 2,000 people, many underage, gathered at a rave at 4708 70th Avenue in Hinton Township last Saturday night.

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Mioduszewski credited Purcell’s department for escorting ambulances in to the havoc to get medical help to people who had overdosed on either alcohol or drugs.

With a crowd of thousands of revelers drinking and possibly doing drugs - a Mt. Pleasant woman who was sexually assaulted at the party said she tested positive for the drug Ketamine after she was sent to a hospital - dangerous situations can occur for both law enforcement and people attending the party.

Last weekend’s rave was a hit among those who attended, who thumbed their noses at police on social media.

But now that a rave has happened locally, law enforcement is putting measures in place to ensure the public’s safety, Purcell said.

“The party in Mecosta County took law enforcement by surprise,” he said, adding that police in general didn’t know about the social media aspect and the ability for organizers and others to reach thousands of people. “Therefore, law enforcement has developed proactive measures to ensure the safety of the public.”

Fallout from last weekend’s rave included the arrest of one partygoer for drunken driving after he crashed his car into a house.

Mecosta County Sheriff’s detectives are continuing the investigation into the rape of the Mt. Pleasant woman, who said she had been drugged at the party.

Lack of empathy and social media boasts of a “successful” party by those who attended are disturbing to many.

Deb Derry, a counselor at Mt. Pleasant High School, said she has been closely following reports on the rave.

“Going through news reports and Tweets and Facebook comments, what comes foremost in my mind is the Superman complex, in my opinion - it’s ‘I’m fearless, it can’t happen to me,’” Derry said.

Derry sees what she calls the Superman complex in a lot of students she works with between the ages of 14 and 17; it’s the idea that nothing dangerous can or will happen to them despite risky behavior.

“(The kids say) I’m going to have such a good time, none of that will happen to me.”

Instant gratification is another issue with kids in that age range, with drugs that kids have not used and them not knowing what it will do to their systems or how fast it will happen, she said.

It’s typical to see teenagers in that age range not knowing their limits even when they think they do, Derry said.

Even though they have been educated on illicit drugs and date rape, kids that age start to consume, to take more or smoke more, resulting in the effects being too much, Derry said.

“They don’t even think about it before they go, even though they’ve been told ‘watch your drink,’” Derry said. “The instant gratification kicks in.

“They’re young, with small bodies, and they just can’t handle the street drugs.”

Mixing street drugs - whatever is the easiest and most available - with alcohol is a time bomb, according to Derry.

“Even when it does happen to them, with the overdoses, they don’t stop,” Derry said. “That’s the part that really does scare me.”

Derry has been monitoring social media platforms where “Project P,” the name given to the Mecosta rave, is active.

“I saw some posts like ‘it sucks that someone was assaulted, but woohoo we’re going to do it again, with more people, and go out and do it again,’” Derry said.

In her experience working with teenagers at the high school Derry said the school closely monitors social media posts made during school time but doesn’t have much control over what is posted when students are not in school.

Derry said she hasn’t been made aware of any parties of the same magnitude as the Mecosta party.

“Things escalate,” Derry said. “In this case, they want it to be this big.

“With this, it sounds like they are trying to beat a record. They are loving that their friends in Texas heard it on the news.”

Despite differences between typical high school parties and the rave in Mecosta, teenagers tend to live in the moment and aren’t always aware that what they post to social media can reach a much larger number of people than intended, Derry said.

“In prior knowledge, maybe there’s a bonfire, 20 people, then they look up and it’s 30 people and growing, and then they don’t know what to do,” Derry said. “Even during the school year, I work with that population, and there were no reports of any types of this type of party.

“Small parties, but nothing that reached this capacity.”

Social media encouragement could contribute to the growing rave phenomenon.

A Facebook page for “Project P” garnered almost 5,000 “likes” in less than a week, reposting photos and national news segments from last weekend.

Copycat events have popped up, such as a party planned for the night of Aug. 8 called “Turn down for whattttttt?” and a party planned for the night of Aug. 23 called “PROJECT MICHIGAN!!!”

Many of the event privacy settings switch between public, invite only and hidden, so as not to attract unwanted attention from authorities.

Several of the events had comment threads started encouraging potential attendees to leave their Snapchat usernames for location information.

Now that police are not taken by surprise, Purcell said, officers will be better equipped to keep the public safe.

Morning Sun reporter Randi Shaffer contributed to this report.

About the Author

Holly Mahaffey writes about features and food for the Morning Sun. A photojournalism graduate of Central Michigan University, Holly recently moved back to her college town to work on social media and community engagement for the paper. Reach the author at hmahaffey@michigannewspapers.com
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